Measures of Trust
by Rorke's Drift
Summary: The four stories we didn't get at the end of Episode 5.14 The Toy Job. Spoilers - obviously - for that that episode, but also for sundry others along the way (and possibly a deleted scene or two) if you haven't watched them all yet!
1. Sophie

_All the usual disclaimers about these characters and the concept not belonging to me apply. And I can only apologise to John Rogers, Chris Downey, and Joe Hortua who wrote such an awesome story for Nate at the end of The Toy Job...there's no way these four stories can compete! (but I wrote them anyway...sorry.)_

_Author's note__: As noted in the story summary, lots of potential for spoilers. But the show HAS been off the air for over a year, so, seriously, if there are episodes you haven't seen yet, STOP reading this story AND GO AND WATCH THEM! They are far more entertaining - and explosions are so much more satisfying on screen than on paper..._

_Anyway, that being said, this little four-part story is a 'thank you' for all the people who have favourited/followed one of my stories in the past month or so. I don't know what sparked the recent activity (maybe the communal grief at the first anniversary of Leverage's cancellation drew more people into the fandom?), but it reminded me how nice it is to see those notifications pop up in one's inbox - and helped coax one of my smaller plot bunnies out of hibernation (most of the other plot bunnies have turned out to be giant rabbits, and I'm a little wary of poking them with sticks...I may just have to wait for their alarm clocks to wake them up :).) I hope you like this story as much as whichever one you previously ran across!_

_PS. Un-betaed as usual. All mistakes, typos, etc are all my own._

_PS2. I didn't mean to suggest that there will actually be any explosions in this story. Sorry. Maybe next time._

* * *

It's an awkward silence that follows Nate's revelation about wanting to pass his childhood dream of becoming master trumpeter onto Sam. Parker fixes her gaze resolutely on her hands. Hardison's eyes skitter around the room, but refuse to meet any of the others. Eliot, with an obvious effort of will, keeps his focus on Nate, and Nate meets his gaze for a moment before clearing his throat and looking away. He looks to Sophie for recue. Like Parker, she'd initially dropped her eyes, but unlike Parker, she looks back up, giving Nate a little smile. She knows she needs to say something, to fill the silence. The exchange of trust had, after all, been her suggestion. But Nate, damn him, had upped the ante on her. The story she had planned on sharing – a light-hearted account of her seduction of a Spanish diplomat's son – would sound insincere in the wake of Nate's story, would be a repudiation of the way he has bared his soul.

"Do you remember the Countess of Kensington?" Sophie asks instead.

She looks around and sees the relief, tinged with varying degrees of curiousity, in the four pairs of eyes that have shot to her face.

"She isn't actually my aunt," she continues. "But she and her husband were family to one of the first 'Sophie's I became."

"Does that mean you are a princess?" Parker demands. "And do you have a castle?"

Sophie smiles, shaking her head.

"No, Parker," she says. "But I suppose I could have if I had done things differently...I guess that's kind of my point."

She pauses, realising she's going to have to give them a little more background than that.

"My parents were good people," Sophie continues. "And they gave me the kind of childhood I am sure they thought was best – largely through the English boarding school system. Unfortunately, their plans weren't my plans, and the one thing they maybe hadn't thought through fully was that an English girls' boarding school can open up a broader range of contacts than might be quite in a parent's mind when imagining their little darling ultimately marrying into Society."

The arch look Sophie sends Nate is full of shared secrets.

"Mettier was godfather to one of my classmates. We spent an... informative... summer at his estate, perfecting our French accents and learning the wines."

Nate snorts and tops up both his own and Sophie's glasses. The younger members of the team exchange bemused glances and shrugs.

"My parents were oblivious to what I was getting up to," Sophie goes on. "I'll never forget the looks on their faces the day I finished school and told them I wanted to move to London and be an actress. They just looked so lost. ...I remember looking at them and thinking 'Who are these people?', and then realising my mother was looking at me as if the exact same thought was running through her mind."

She pauses again, regret flickering across her face.

"We didn't fight about it – no-one yelled. In fact, it was all very polite and proper. But after that, we just drifted apart. Other than Christmas holidays, I hadn't spent much time at home in years anyway, and what letters and phone calls there had been just sort of dwindled away...Anyway, I went to London and started auditioning. The Countess and her husband were one of my best friend's parents; I'd visited them over numerous school holidays and called them 'Auntie' and 'Uncle" for years, so I didn't hesitate when they invited me to stay. The whole 'Duchess of Hanover' thing had started as a dare years earlier, the first time I went to visit over a long weekend...it just seemed easier to maintain it than for my friend and I to explain we'd lied to them before. No-one really questioned it anyway...in the theatre world it wasn't uncommon for people to use a stage name, and anywhere else being introduced by the Count or Countess of Kensington generally ensured not too many questions were asked. When they were, well, there had been some convenient fires in various records halls over the centuries as well as some very confusing marriages."

Sophie smiles, tracing patterns on the bar with an expensively manicured fingernail.

"The first few years were wonderful. Most of the parts I got were small roles or 'member of the chorus' type things, but between the Countess' social contacts and the theatre crowd it was a whirlwind of parties full of men ready to fall in love with me, and it felt like success... It started to fall apart when my friend and the man she was seeing died in a car accident after a weekend visiting friends in the country. I wanted to move out of her parents house at that point, but they begged me not to, saying they'd come to see me as another daughter and they couldn't stand losing us both. So I stayed and we grieved together... I'd come to love them for their own sakes by that point and I played into the role of daughter more than I probably ever had with my own parents. But I had another reason for staying..."

Sophie trails off.

"One of the men who'd been ready to fall in love with me was a member of the Royal family. I don't know that I was in love with him exactly, but I was...dazzled. I mean, talk about glamour – not to mention the jewels! As much as I loved the idea of being an actress, I couldn't resist that temptation. He was married, but I was naive enough at the time to think that wouldn't matter – not when he loved me. And that might have been true for him. The Queen, however, was not going to let divorce sully even a secondary line of succession. And, of course, the whole Duchess of Hanover persona couldn't stand up to the scrutiny that would have followed a public announcement that he wanted to marry me... I don't think I have ever been more humiliated than in the private interview I had in the wake of that. It was made very clear that my options were exposure as a fraud – bringing public shame down on myself, the Count and Countess, and my parents – or breaking off all contact immediately and making myself scarce, in exchange for no official denunciation of Lady Charlotte Prentiss."

Sophie stops, sipping her drink.

"As you can imagine, it didn't seem much like a choice...I left that same day. I had to explain to the Countess what had happened. She was, of course, shocked. I think less at the fact that I had lied about who I was and taken a Royal lover, than at the fact I had let the latter become known – that simply not being the way things should be done. Uncle William was away at the time, so I didn't see him before I left...I have no idea what she told him. I knew I'd let them down – used them, even – and I didn't want to face that. So I buried Charlotte as deeply as I'd buried my childhood self in her, and moved on, making new lives, new people that gave me the escape I was looking for."

She stops again, looking pensive.

"I ran across Uncle William's obituary a couple of years ago," Sophie admits. "But even then I couldn't bring myself to go back. Seeing the Countess when we went to London after Keller was...uncomfortable. But it forced me to acknowledge that piece of my history – of myself, and to bury those parts of Charlotte I should never have let live. Now she's just an aristocratic coat I can slip on and enjoy when she's needed, not a person I have to worry about losing myself in."

Her audience takes a moment to digest this.

"So, that storage locker of art works and artefacts in London that you turned in during that con...?" Nate prompts.

Sophie smiles nostalgically.

"Mostly 'gifts' that were given to Lady Charlotte," she tells him. "Plus a souvenir or two I picked up elsewhere."

"But no castles?" Parker sounds disappointed. "You had a prince and you didn't even get one castle?"

"What can I say, Parker?" Sophie is amused. "I was young, and still learning. I do have a rather nice ring and brooch set from that little interlude, though. I'll show it to you sometime, if you like."

Parker nods, but she's starting to look jumpy again as she realises Sophie's story is over, and either she, Hardison, or Eliot is going to have to speak up next.

"So," Sophie asks brightly, as if reading Parker's mind. "Who's next?"

She looks expectantly between the younger members of the team. Parker twitches away from her gaze, clearly uncomfortable. Eliot has retreated to the end of the bar, glaring into his whiskey as if it can solve the riddle of what would be an appropriate – and unclassified – secret to share. Hardison just looks hesitant, as if he's not quite sure he has a story that qualifies as the kind of trust they're supposed to share. He has secrets galore, of course, but they're mostly technical secrets about backdoors and weak spots that can be exploited to gain access to useful databases or beat even the impossible levels in all computer games, and experience has taught him that the others just do not appreciate such information: Sophie's eyes glaze over within seconds; Parker nods along enthusiastically, but this is just a cover for wherever her mind has wandered off to instead – she either genuinely doesn't care or has already beaten that particular game anyway; Nate sighs and tells him to skip to the punchline; and Eliot doesn't even give the topic that much consideration – just goes straight to the _Dammit, Hardisons_ and demands to know why he needs to know such stuff.

Sophie raises an eyebrow questioningly at Nate.

"Hardison?" he asks. "You got something to share?"


	2. Hardison

_See Chapter 1 for disclaimers, apologies, and other pointless ramblings._

_Author's note: Many thanks for the reviews on Chapter 1! I'm glad people like it so far!_

* * *

_"Hardison?" Nate asks. "You got something to share?"_

"I don't know that that I have any stories for you guys," Hardison says slowly. "I mean, you already pretty much know about my family. Even before Nana, I got lucky with the foster system...nothing worse than having to put on a bow tie and recruit for the Jehovah's Witnesses. And, sure, I wish I'd had a dad who'd taken me to the Superbowl and on a cross-country road trip and stuff like I made up for Eliot's blog – hell, just a dad who could have told me how to kiss a girl in high school without our braces getting tangled would have been good...but I know that living with my dad could have been a lot worse than having no idea who he is. Based on what I saw of my mama's taste in men, I'm pretty sure I'd pick Nana anyhow..."

Hardison trails off, aware that he's babbling a little without any idea of where he's trying to get.

"Why don't you tell us how you got into the whole computer thing?" Nate suggests. "And I've always wanted to know, why the Bank of Iceland?"

Hardison looks surprised.

"That's what you want to know about?" he asks. "A'ight. Sure. I can tell you about the first Gladys."

"Gladys?" Sophie asks.

"His computer," Parker supplies.

"Ah," says Sophie. "Just, maybe, keep the technical details to a minimum for those of us who maybe wouldn't appreciate all of Gladys' finer points?"

She smiles at Hardison, wanting to soften the blow: it is Christmas, after all. Over his shoulder, she sees Eliot tip his glass in her direction in thanks.

"Okay, yeah," Hardison agrees. "Although, y'know, we are talking about turn of the millennium computers here...practically dinosaurs. I bet even Eliot knew how those ones worked."

He turns to send a smirk in Eliot's direction, and gets an eye roll in return. Nate and Sophie exchange a glance, biting back their amusement.

"But Gladys-1 was a classic, a pretty sweet ride, if I do say so myself," Hardison continues, settling into his reminiscence.

Nate clears his throat and gestures for Hardison to get on with his story.

"So," Hardison starts again. "The first time I got to use a computer was in middle school. Some rich guy or company or something donated a whole lot of old desktops to my school at the beginning of my seventh grade year. We were s'posed to be learning 'keyboarding skills' or some such - pretty much just typing by a fancy name. And the teacher sure didn't know how to do anything more than that and maybe playing 'Oregon Trail'. But computers made sense to me like nothing else, you know? From the very first time I got my fingers on a keyboard, I just kept finding amazing new things about them...I didn't learn much during that stupid keyboarding class, but there were a couple of computers that didn't fit in the classroom, so they stuck them in the library, and I started messing around during lunch and after school. I started going to the public library on weekends for books on programming, and to use the computers they had there...Nana kept asking me why I suddenly had so much homework, when the previous year I probably hadn't even known where the library was."

Hardison stops for a mouthful of soda to wet throat and lips drying out with talking.

"I knew Nana couldn't afford to buy a computer, so I started trying to build one," he picks up the story again. "Man, people throw away a lot of electronics, and it's not like I really knew at first how all the pieces needed to fit together, so those first few models were disasters. None of them did anything recognisable as computing – although they were pretty good at blowing circuits. I don't think I've ever seen Nana madder than the time one of them took out the whole block's power for two days..."

Hardison shakes his head in nostalgia for those bygone days.

"The day I first got one up and running and connected to the internet, they must have heard me whoop all the way down in Cleveland: age of the geek, baby!"

He gives a little fist pump for emphasis.

"So why 'Gladys'?" Sophie wants to know.

Hardison chuckles.

"That was the first thing I looked up on her," he explains. "Nana and one of the neighbours were arguing about the name of 'that singer, you know, the one who had the Pips?', and I told her I could find out if she was right. So I typed 'Gladys Knight' into a search engine, and up pops all this information about her career and albums and stuff. Nana was pleased as punch – and more impressed than if I'd made my bed without being told. The name just seemed like a good way to commemorate the computer's success."

"What about Iceland?" Nate asks.

"Iceland?" Hardison echoes. "Oh, that was a year or so later...Nana got sick and had to spend some time in the hospital. With the bills from that and the medications they put her on after, well, she just couldn't keep up...She had three of us kids at that point. We were all fosters, so if she couldn't pay the bills, they would have moved us. And I didn't want to go – plus, I didn't like Nana worrying about it all the time...She knew as well as we did that we might end up places where problems like making the grocery money last the week would look pretty damn petty."

Parker shifts anxiously beside him, and Hardison reaches over to squeeze her hand.

"Anyway, the Bank of Iceland must have been trying to win points with their customers for convenience or something, because they put up this fancy-ass website that their security programs couldn't keep up with. I was poking around it one night, just looking at where the holes were, not really planning on doing anything more than maybe experimenting with ways to close those holes or re-open them in similar systems, when it came to me that I was far enough into the bank's system that I could pay off Nana's bills from in there and solve all our problems...I barely even thought twice, just did it and then hightailed it out of the system. I probably should have tried for a little more finesse, though, because a couple of days later Nana got some visitors who wanted to know why she was banking in Iceland. Fortunately she was so confused by the question that they figured she was senile or something and gave it up as a bad job...But I guess the word 'computer' came up at some point in the conversation, because the old girl had figured it out by the time I got home from school. I knew right then that I had to learn how to get in and out of data systems without leaving any traceable clues because, even if the police never figured it out, Nana was way too good at putting two and two together and coming up with 'I don't know how but I sure as hell know who' as an answer."

Nate is leaning against the bar, arms folded, and looking speculatively at Hardison.

"So, that was it, then?" he asks. "The Bank of Iceland was just a target of convenience?"

Hardison shrugs.

"Convenience, opportunity, whatever," he says. "I mean, who would go after the Bank of Iceland, for crying out loud?"

Nate huffs a half-laugh.

"That was exactly what I could never figure out," he says. "Good story, Hardison."

Hardison nods, picking his drink up again to take another sip. He swallows and then opens his mouth to ask who's going next, but never gets the chance.

"I stole Mr. Bunny," Parker blurts out next to him.


	3. Parker

_See Chapter 1 for disclaimers etc._

_Author's note: Halfway there already...I think I need to start writing longer stories again...Thanks for reading (regardless of length :))!_

* * *

_"I stole Mr. Bunny," Parker blurts out next to him_.

Parker is coiled in on herself like a spring, hands clenched around each other on the bar, shoulders pulling up towards her ears, and eyes screwed shut.

"I stole Mr. Bunny," the words burst out of her with an almost explosive force.

Parker opens her eyes. She's surprised to see the others still standing or sitting where they had been, not doing anything more than looking at her curiously. Well, there might have been some head-shaking from Eliot and eye-rolling from Hardison.

"That's not exactly a secret," Nate tells her.

Parker frowns. She's sure she hasn't told them about Mr. Bunny.

"You are a thief, Parker," Sophie says, amused. "I think we all assumed."

Parker shakes her head. They don't get it. She knew none of them already knew the truth about Mr. Bunny.

"No," she says. "I mean, I stole him from a hospital."

She sneaks a look at Nate.

"From sick kids," she clarifies.

Any undertones of amusement or exasperation in the air precipitate like water vapour crystallising in a blast of frigid air. Even if she doesn't feel exactly guilty about the theft, it's clear that Parker expects them to condemn her for it.

Nate looks round the faces in front of him. Sophie's eyes are compassionate, and she is already reaching a hand towards Parker. Hardison, in contrast, looks distressed – like he doesn't quite know what he should hug Parker or focus on Nate in case her confession makes him lose it. Eliot, for just one moment, looks pole-axed – and strangely ashamed. Nate doesn't think he's seen that look since the conversation in which Hardison forced Eliot admit to his history with Moreau. Nate's curiousity wants to follow-up on that, but this is Parker's moment. And, anyway, Eliot's already blinked it away, standing to get a fresh drink.

Nate leans forward, ducking down to find Parker's eyes.

"Why don't you tell us about it?" he suggests.

Parker nods.

"It was after my brother..." she starts, but can't quite finish. She gives herself a little shake, and tries again.

"There wasn't anyone home to watch me, so they took me in the ambulance with him...At the hospital, I don't think anyone knew what to do with me. I mean, I wasn't hurt, so they didn't need to admit me, and they couldn't get hold of my foster parents, so they couldn't sent me home. And my brother was dead, so it wasn't like they would let me stay with him."

Parker shrugs, looking a little more like her usual self.

"I think one of the nurses was trying to track down a social worker, but she was taking forever, and I got bored...There's not a whole lot for kids to do in hospitals: it's mostly just sick people and a bunch of equipment making weird noises, but people are mostly too busy with what they're doing to notice a kid, so they're pretty good for exploring. Anyway, I did find this one room with books and games and a tv to watch movies and such, so I stayed there for a while."

Parker stops.

"I didn't have anything of my brother's," she says after a moment – an apparent non sequitur. "And the nurse said I couldn't take him with me anymore, so I wanted something I could keep... There were all these toys there – mostly games and puzzles, and a dolls house, I think. But over in the corner was this stuffed bunny. And I was thinking that if I couldn't have something of my brother's, then maybe something from the last place he was, was the next best thing... I took the bunny because he didn't have pieces that could break off or get lost or anything ...and because his ears were soft...Anyway, when the social worker tracked me down, she must have thought it was mine, because she didn't say anything. And she didn't take me back to the foster home we'd been in before, so no-one else was going to know I hadn't always had Mr. Bunny if I didn't tell them. I just kept quiet and kept him."

She shrugs, waiting for whatever their reaction might be.

"Why is that a problem?" Nate asks.

She looks up at him, her expression clearly saying 'Well, duh.'

"Because I stole him from kids in the hospital," she says. Surely Nate gets this. I mean, wouldn't he have been mad if someone stole his son's favourite toy when he was sick?

Nate gives her a little smile.

"Parker, why do you think people donate toys to hospitals?" he asks this time.

Parker shrugs.

"Because they feel bad for the sick kids?" she suggests.

"Or, maybe, because they know that having toys to play with or even just cuddle can make things a little bit better for scared, lonely kids," Nate counters. "Just because you weren't sick doesn't mean you weren't the kid that bunny was intended for, Parker."

Parker frowns.

"So I didn't steal Mr. Bunny?" she asks, confused.

Nate chuckles as he straightens back up.

"No, you stole him all right," he reassures her. "But you stole him right."

"Huh," Parker mulls this over. "I guess that makes sense...He was kind of asking to be taken – just like the Rosalind diamond when I went to Australia."

"Eh – " Nate starts doubtfully. So far as he has been able to tell, bright, shiny, and very expensive constitute an invitation to be stolen in Parker's world, and he doesn't have the mental agility to find the parallel between that and the brown, cuddly bunny that he suspects still has the place of honour on Parker's bed. He cuts himself off when he realises that delving into that particular conundrum might literally take them down the rabbit hole.

"Exactly," he finishes instead.

The smile he gets from Parker is achingly sweet. It's only directed Nate's way for a moment before Hardison shuffles closer to Parker, murmuring something in her ear and she turns to answer him, but in those seconds it steals his breath and sears across his heart in a way he remembers from Sam. There have been a few moments like this over the years with the younger members of the team - mostly with Parker but occasionally with Hardison and, once, shockingly, with Eliot – when Nate has caught himself in the realisation that he's right inside a defining moment in their lives and that it's being written indelibly across his memory. At first, he'd shied away from the _Dad-ness_ of it – all that part of him was supposed to be Sam's. But somehow, the three of them have found their own part of him to inhabit, and he can absorb these moments without feeling it's a betrayal of Sam. It's not healing exactly – cautery maybe, with a big ugly scar he's not willing to poke at too hard – but he can see the change reflected back to him in Sophie's face as she exchanges a smile of her own with him.

Nate looks down the bar to where Eliot should be at the end of the row. He pulls up in surprise at the realisation Eliot's bar stool is empty. Looking around, he finds the man leaning against the prep side of the counter half-way down the bar behind him, arms crossed and a bottle of beer resting lightly in the crook of one elbow.

Hardison says something to Parker that makes her snort, but she shushes him.

"It's Eliot's turn first," she says. "He hasn't told his story yet."


	4. Eliot

_See Chapter 1 for disclaimers, etc._

_Author's apologies: Sorry about that little unexpected hiatus (double apologies to the Eliot fans among you :)) - I went on a last minute "snow-venture" and failed to pack the devices that connect to internet type things. This seemed like a good idea at the time (my electronics have a bad history with last minute adventures of even the mildly damp kind), but I wasn't really thinking about the fact hat I had left three quarters of a story adrift on the ether seas. Anyway, here, finally, is the fourth and final chapter - thanks for sticking with it!_

* * *

_"It's Eliot's turn first," Parker says. "He hasn't told his story yet."_

Nate looks back at Parker as she speaks. Both she and Hardison have turned expectant eyes on Eliot – Nate can't quite tell if their expectation is more curiousity, or the sense of sibling fairness that demands not only the same number of marshmallows in everyone's cup of hot chocolate, but the same number of green beans on everyone's dinner plates.

Eliot looks resigned – and wary. Not a great start for a Christmas gift of trust. He unfolds his arms, setting the beer to one side.

"Couple of months ago," he says, each word coming out like it's being dragged over ground glass, "I drove down to Oklahoma...Went to see my dad."

There's a pregnant silence when Eliot stops, everyone waiting for the story that follows. When none is forthcoming, the other four exchange glances.

"And...?" Hardison prompts.

Eliot frowns.

"And what?" he demands.

"This was after we took down that Save!More store, right?" Hardison asks. He gets a terse nod from Eliot and continues. "So, you went to see your dad and then what happened?"

"And then I came back," Eliot growls.

Hardison, Parker and Sophie all protest that this can't count as Eliot's story.

"You said a story or a secret, Sophie," Eliot counters. "This was a secret."

The silence this time falls somewhere between awkward and embarrassed.

"Nah, man, it wasn't," Hardison admits at last.

"What?" Eliot's growl is tipping from annoyed into fierce.

"What, what?" Hardison's tone has its own undercurrent of annoyance. "That job really got under your skin, and then you dropped out of sight for four days. You think we wouldn't worry? I just pinged your phone, is all – we saw where you were headed and figured it was all good unless you were gone too long."

"Dammit, Hardison," Eliot's growling properly now. "Ain't you ever heard of privacy?"

"Ain't you ever heard of leaving a note?" Hardison demands in his turn. "Seriously, man. Just a text saying 'Headed out of town for a few day. See you Sunday.' Is that too much to ask?"

Eliot's response this time doesn't make it into words. Nate stays silent, expecting Eliot to follow it up by leaving. He doesn't, though. And after a moment, Sophie's voice drops into the fray, cutting across the tension.

"Why was it meant to be a secret, Eliot?" she asks.

Eliot's eyes go to Sophie's and then Nate's as he shakes his head in repsonse.

"Because he hadn't be home in, what?, eighteen?, nineteen? years," Hardison fills in.

"Hardison!" Eliot explodes.

Nate suppresses a smile.

"It's Eliot's story," he reminds Hardison. "Let him tell it his way."

"But he isn't!" Hardison protests.

"Hardison," Sophie and Nate chorus in exasperation, and he subsides muttering.

"So, eighteen years?" Sophie asks. "That sounds like a story."

Eliot looks at her, eyes flickering guiltily to Hardison and Parker, then to Nate.

"We had a fight," he says, reluctantly. "Night before I left to join the army. He told me if I walked out the door, not to come back."

"Why -?" Parker starts to ask, but stops, pressing her lips tightly closed and shaking her head.

"Must have been quite the reunion," Nate comments. "What did he say?"

Eliot crosses his arms again.

"Nothing," he says. "He wasn't home."

No-one has a response to that.

"Felt like an idiot," Eliot admits after a moment. "There were lights on, but no-one was answering the door. Stood on that front porch for damn-near thirty minutes before I realised it was Thursday night during football season – whole town was down at the high school for the pep rally...Players' families always used to leave the front lights on those nights. My sister and her kid moved back home a year or so back, and he's old enough now to be on the high school team."

"You didn't wait for them to come home?" Hardison interrupts, apparently not interested in the sociology of small-town Oklahoma.

Eliot shakes his head.

"Drove by the high school," he says. "The whole town was there...I'd forgotten how that felt: everyone being so caught up in it all...It was like, in this one place and one way, time had completely stood still. I hung around until the parking lot started to empty out enough that people would start to notice and be alarmed by the strange truck just sitting there. When my dad and my sister and nephew came out, I didn't have to hear the argument they were having to know it was about whether he had to come home for dinner because it was a school night, or if he could go out for burgers with some of the team – I think we had that argument after every pep rally every year that I played football...although the kid must have skills I didn't because he ran off to join his friends and I don't remember winning that privilege until my senior year..."

Eliot trails off, then seems to decide that since he's said this much, he may as well finish. He takes a breath.

"Anyhow, they looked happy, you know?" he continues. "Like they'd found a good place in their lives and things are going according to plan this time. That's all I was looking to know, so I left before one of the nosy old ladies could decide I was trouble and called the sheriff on me. I drove back up here and, well, that was that...Not much of a story, really, when you get down to it."

Eliot shrugs with a feigned nonchalance as he draws his story to a close. Sophie and Hardison both give small smiles, apparently satisfied with what he's shared. Parker is frowning, but Eliot's not sure if it's because she doesn't get why he didn't stay and speak to his dad, or because he didn't explain what a pep rally is – either or both is equally likely, but Eliot's not going to encourage her by asking. Nate, on the other hand, is keeping his face studiously blank.

"Spit it out, Nate," Eliot tells him. He'd rather deal with whatever Nate's issue is now than have it lurking in corners to bite them later.

"What?" Nate raises an eyebrow innocently.

"Whatever it is that's stuck in your craw," Eliot huffs. "Just say it."

"Okay," Nate says, raising his eyes with the challenge now clearly showing. "You said that seeing your family happy was all you needed, but what about them?"

"What do you mean?" Eliot asks, voice heading down towards a growl again.

"Look, I get it was a bad fight," Nate says, holding his hands up in submission on this point, "but, as a father, I can tell you that, no matter what it was about or what happened after, he'd want you to come home."

"You can't know that, Nate," Eliot tells him, flatly.

"No?" Nate asks. "I can tell you this, if Sam were alive, there is nothing I couldn't forgive him for, and nothing I wouldn't ask his forgiveness for, if it meant having him back in my life today."

"Yeah, well, if there's one piece of silver lining in the way things turned out, be glad you never had to put that theory to the test," Eliot's words lash out at Nate, countering hurt with hurt before he can stop it.

There's a moment in which even the room seems to hold its breath, but Eliot reins the anger back in before Nate's finished his flinch.

"I'm sorry," he says quickly. "I didn't mean it like that."

Nate waves the apology aside.

"You might be right," he concedes. "The only thing I can imagine hurting worse than the way I lost Sam is the thought that my son could be out in the world somewhere, thinking I didn't love him enough to forgive him."

By rights, it is Eliot's turn to flinch. He doesn't, though. Looking Nate right in the eye, Eliot shrugs.

"Maybe," he says. "But if Sam had grown up to be everything you raised him not to be, would you really want him there to keep that disappointment bouncing back and forth between you?"

"If that's how you thought it would go, why did you drive down there?" Sophie interjects.

Eliot turns a rueful gaze on her.

"I probably shouldn't have," he says. "Martin on that Save!More job kind of reminded me of my dad and made me want to go make sure he was doing all right. And it was right after the Spanish flu thing in DC that Hardison and Parker and I stopped, and I guess I let that kind of go to my head and thought it would be okay to visit this time, and ... I don't know...Seeing my dad with my nephew, in the place where I grew up, though, made it clear what a stupid idea that was."

Nate grunts in exasperated disagreement.

"I'm going to say it again, Eliot," he says obstinately. "As a father, there is nothing my son could do that would be such a disappointment that I would want him to stay away. I think you should give your father the chance to prove that to you."

Eliot shakes his head, frustrated by Nate's refusal to see what he is saying.

"I'm a killer and a thief, Nate," Eliot says, laying each word out with deliberation. "I won't ask my father to pretend to be okay with that."

The words carry a conviction that seems to quell even Nate's argument. The silence that follows them expands, pushing outwards between the members of the team until, finally, it's left to Eliot to break it.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I guess that wasn't quite what Sophie had in mind when she suggested this for Christmas gifts."

"No," Sophie stops him, and her eyes are shining with something suspiciously like tears as she looks around the group. "I asked that we share trust for Christmas, and everyone did that. It was perfect."

"Well," Eliot continues. "I'm going to call it a night. Hardison, let me know if any crises come up with the Brewpub; otherwise, I'll see you all after the New Year."

There's a round of good nights as he makes his way to the door, but the discomfort of the argument with Nate lingers, and his hand is already pushing the door open before Nate speaks.

"Eliot," Nate stops him, and Eliot pauses, looking back warily as if expecting a final volley in the exchange of shots. "Merry Christmas."

Considering Nate's earlier diatribes against the celebration of Christmas, Eliot isn't entirely sure what to make of this and he pauses, looking for hidden sarcasm. The twitching around the corners of Nate's lips when he recognises what Eliot is doing is, ironically, what convinces him of the sincerity.

Eliot huffs somehting that could be a laugh.

"Bah humbug," he says lightly, and with a final wave, leaves.

Nate turns back to the remainder of the team. Parker and Hardison are looking at him like he should have been able to fix Eliot's story to have a happy ending like he had theirs; Sophie is giving him a more considering look.

"What?" he asks her.

"You stopped arguing," she says. "I'm not sure I've seen that happen before."

"Yes, well," Nate prevaricates. "The phrase 'throwing sand against the tide' does spring to mind."

"What do you mean?" Parker asks.

Nate sighs.

"First, I met Eliot's father once," he says succinctly. "That reunion might go exactly the way Eliot expects. Second, even if I'm right, Eliot's not ready to be forgiven."

"Oh," Parker says.

She looks over at Hardison.

"You think we should go?"

Hardison nods.

"Yeah," he says. "It is Christmas, after all. Even if it is just a 'commercialization of a pagan blood-sacrifice festival.'"

Nate smiles to himself. It doesn't sound like Hardison has figured out yet that he'd been conned into thinking about some of the things Christmas should really mean – and Nate's not about to point it out.

Sophie wishes the younger thieves a Merry Christmas as they head towards the door.

"Where exactly are you going?" Nate asks, instead. "Or don't we want to know?"

Parker and Hardison exchange glances.

"Well," Hardison says, "since we don't have to pretend to be okay with being thieves and such –"

"Because we are thieves," Parker breaks in helpfully.

"What she said," Hardison agrees. "We thought maybe we'd go remind Eliot of that..."

"Ah," Nate says. He hides a satisfied smile. If his current plans play out as he hopes, the three younger members of the team are going to be just fine. Outwardly, he gives a resigned sigh. "Just put back whatever it is you decide to steal."

"Hardison?" Sophie calls as the door opens, and he looks back at her. "Remind him we're not pretending either?"

He gives her a thumbs up and ushers Parker out the door, shushing her quickly as she demands to know when they're exchanging the presents Nate thinks they haven't bou-... obtained.

Sophie and Nate exchange amused glances – as if they didn't know about the clandestine gifts!

"So," Sophie says, finishing her drink, "I hear a rumour that you are a very skilled trumpet player...care to put some of that talent to use in a Christmas celebration?"

Nate takes their glasses to the sink.

"That depends," he says. "Does this 'celebration' involve me being on stage with any or all of your acting students?"

Sophie raises an arch eyebrow.

"I had something a little more...private...in mind," she tells him. "But if you'd like some co-stars, I'm sure something could be arranged..."

Nate laughs.

"I don't think that would be very fair to them," he holds her coat for her to slide into. "Lead on, Ms. Devereaux. Your trumpet awaits."

* * *

_The End._

* * *

_Some extra author's notes:_

_1. Yes, there is a story about how Nate met Eliot's father. However, that particular plot bunny has a very co-dependent relationship with another one who unfortunately had to go into the witness protection program for awhile..._

_2. Please don't read this as an 'Eliot has low self esteem' story (or, if you do, please don't tell me that!). There is nothing wrong with Eliot's self-esteem - he knows his talents and his worth. But he has done some truly awful things (for good and bad reasons) at various point sin his life, and I don't think any of us would love him as much if he wasn't aware (and regretful) of the consequences of that for himself and the people in his life._


End file.
